


Lost on the Road of Love

by epkitty



Category: Lewis - Fandom
Genre: Episode Related, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-28
Updated: 2011-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-16 00:33:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epkitty/pseuds/epkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hathaway ponders – with fractured stream of consciousness – the recent events at Oxford.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost on the Road of Love

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Tarot card 07, The Chariot. Spoilers for “Life Born of Fire.” I’d only ever seen four episodes of this show at the time of writing. Also, I’m American.

It was the matter of self that Hathaway struggled with.

Friends helped, at first. It took some time to realize that they were only a pleasant distraction. Friends could not act as the lens he hoped would refract the essentials he sought; these people only reflected the parts he chose to reveal to them, and he didn’t want any more mirrors.

The church, he thought, would surely hold the answer. But the church and the faith it offered provided answers without reasons, and in the end left him bereft of all he thought he had gained in the seminary. His ‘priestly phase’ he called it. Truths he had believed so fiercely no longer gleamed so black and white. Once the fervor died down, he was left with only his own reason, and no better concept of who he really was.

He never wanted to be a police officer. It wasn’t the sort of game he’d played as a child: he’d never dreamt of a shining badge with his name on, or hunting down the bad guys who would – naturally – wear black hats and twirl dark mustaches. But the law provided reasons, and the law upheld them, and the law protected the innocent, better than the church ever did anyway. And being a part of that made more sense to a level head than anything else ever had.

= = = = =

He’d tried to ask Lewis if he really thought it was as simple as drawing a straight line down the middle. Gay, straight. Drinks with little umbrellas in them on one side, football and things like ordinary life on the other.

And Lewis had given some vague, heartfelt answer like it didn’t matter and he shouldn’t have asked anyway.

It wasn’t his business.

The problem was that Hathaway wanted more and more for Lewis to make it his business.

= = = = =

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Zoe Kenneth had passionately told him.

“Love is never wrong,” Will had urged the world in what were some of his last words.

They were two people who had lost their way, and Hathaway was as much to blame as anyone else, if not more, for that. More than anyone else, it was his fault all those people had died.

= = = = =

Hathaway finally decided to ask himself how important self-discovery really was. If the answers were worth the pain they would bring. Somehow, he didn’t think so. “I’m happy with my life,” he had said.

“Yeah, right,” he’d been called out.

Maybe if he just wanted what he wanted without the lens of religion or society… but then maybe that was the real truth.

He wanted Lewis.

= = = = =

Strange, how ready he’d been to die. But there had been no cleansing fire for him. A man had borne him away from the fire, into the night. He’d tasted the smoke down to his lungs, and felt the flames lick his face, and woken to the startling stale white of the hospital. And the man.

“Thank you, sir.” That didn’t seem enough somehow. “You saved me.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic.”

A hundred questions more lay between them.

“How did you—”

“Why were you—”

They both looked away with the common awkwardness of men who don’t quite know how to act.

“You go first,” Lewis said, finally seating himself beside the hospital bed.

“Oh, I…” Hathaway blew out a nervous breath and tried a careful smile. “How did you know I was in trouble?”

“The importance of names. _Oxford_ ,” Lewis rolled his eyes and shook his head at the notion of such a place. “I couldn’t let it go until everything fit.”

“I guess I’m pretty lucky.”

“Lucky bastard.”

= = = = =

They kept Hathaway in hospital for two nights. The combination of sedative and smoke, he’d been told, was ‘worrying’ the doctors. But he felt better every moment, and only seemed to find himself more centered as the dreary hours wore on, which was something he found surprising.

Maybe a near-death experience was all he needed to find what he was looking for.

= = = = =

Hathaway hadn’t made plans to get home. It was only natural that Lewis was there with fresh clothes from his flat, ready to drive him back without a word about anything too heavy.

Lewis didn’t care for heavy words, if he could avoid them. Hathaway had noticed that.

= = = = =

His flat was dark and cold.

Lewis walked in after him and flicked on the lights, turned on some music, just noise to fill in the empty places between them.

Hathaway had thought up a better way of filling that emptiness, and he had decided, laying in the white hospital bed, that maybe he’d found himself a long time ago, and it was only courage that he’d been searching for.

(When asked what he loved, Hathaway had told the video camera that he loved the bells of Oxford. It wasn’t a lie. Merely an omission.)

Lewis kissed him back, which was unexpected, and therefore exquisitely sweet.

Lewis on his knees was unaccountably sweeter, and his brief grunt of explanation that he hadn’t done this since university was the just about the most delightful apology anyone had ever given Hathaway about anything.

He told his superior he was too old to be on his knees.

Lewis seemed to have apprehensions about the finality of a bedroom scene, but Hathaway found the kisses to ease those apprehensions away.

The sex was glorious, and the morning came early.

Even then, they didn’t really talk about it.

After all, reading Loaded and eating Yorkie bars kind of balances out wearing nice shoes and listening to chamber music.

= = = = =

The End


End file.
